


For The Love of Innocence

by afinecollector (orphan_account)



Series: Not Waving but Drowning [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Brotherly Love, Epilepsy, Family, Family Bond, Family Dinner, Focal Seizure, Gen, Holmes Brothers, Holmes Brothers H/C, Hurt/Comfort, JME, Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy, Love, Myoclonus, New diagnosis, absence seizure, epileptic, fraternal love, h/c, myoclonic, myoclonic jerks, simple focal seizure, simple partial seizure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 07:06:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9310544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/afinecollector
Summary: Sherlock's diagnosis is working its way into the minds of the family. Try as Sherlock might to project that he's dealing with his new way of life, the JME diagnosis proves its unpredictability.Mycroft is, as ever, there.





	

dp>“Myoclonus. Myo, meaning muscle. And clonus, meaning jerk.” Mycroft read aloud in his bedroom, flicking his eyes quickly across the text on the page. “...is a localised jerking action. While many people experience benign myoclonus, such as the feeling of falling and subsequent jump when asleep, it is myoclonus that persists…” he hummed, considering those “falling” feelings at night and tried to equate that to Sherlock, having watched the boy when the myoclonic jerks started numerous times now.

“What're you reading?” 

Mycroft turned, startled by the voice, and raised his eyebrows at his brother. “Journal,” he held up the book. “About Epilepsy.” 

Sherlock’s face fell in a little. In the last two months everything had been about Epilepsy. Every cough and sneeze, every headache, every conversation. He was bored of it now, and had hoped that Mycroft would be a reprieve. “Why?” He asked, his slowly breaking voice uneven as he spoke. 

“So I know everything I can; so you don't have to have a seizure at school like that again. So that you're safe, and well…” Mycroft listed. 

“Why not just ask me about it. I can tell you what it feels like,” Sherlock huffed. He stepped further into Mycroft’s bedroom. “Mum and dad are bothering me.” 

Mycroft held the book closed between his hands. “How?” He asked. He turned away from Sherlock for a moment to set the book down on his dresser, then looked back at him with a questioning expression. 

“Watching me all the time, following me - she tried to follow me to the toilet!” Sherlock's face was astonished while Mycroft tried not to smile. “It isn't funny!” Sherlock groaned, “I'm not a child, I've been peeing independently for a while now.” 

The blush to Sherlock's cheeks was enough to break Mycroft's humour and turn it into second hand embarrassment. “She's just worried - and your penis isn't new to her, she changed your nappies. We all did.” 

He left out the part about them still being scared. He didn't mention their fear of Sherlock having a life-threatening seizure, or getting injured, or what it meant for his future. He didn't tell Sherlock that both he and his parents had checked on him at least hourly in those first nights home again. He daren’t speak about everything he'd learnt about Epilepsy and some of the darker effects of seizures; what Sherlock didn't know, wouldn't hurt him. 

Sherlock rolled his eyes at Mycroft and invited himself to sit on Mycroft's neatly-made bed. “Do you think Dad and Mummy will stop wrapping me in cotton wool any time soon? I'm going back to school, I can't very well have them follow me there.” 

Mycroft shrugged his shoulders. “Don't rush to go back. Adjust to everything first. Learn the triggers and the management skills before you reorient yourself at school. We just want to know you're going to be safe and well.” 

“I am!” Sherlock insisted. “People looked at me funny before, they're going to look at me even more funnily now. The longer I'm gone, the worse it'll be go to back. I just want to get back to normal. I want the seizures under control and I wa…hmm,” Mycroft tilted his head as Sherlock simply stopped mid sentence as his mind unfocused on the wings of an absence seizure. For a flat eleven seconds, he blinked slowly and silently before he coughed, much liked clearing his throat, and shrugged his shoulders. “...and I want to go back to school.”

“It was an effort to get you to attend before all this; why are you so keen to return?” Mycroft asked him. He turned his back on him momentarily as he drew the heavy curtains at the bay window. He turned back to Sherlock and leaned against the chest of draws. “You know you'll be ridiculed and you're not exactly equipped for handling it at the best of times. Maybe you should ask Mummy about a tutor?”

“I'm not being locked away like Prince John!” Sherlock snarled. Mycroft rolled his eyes. 

“I didn't mean permanently. Just for a time, while everything settles.” Mycroft reasoned with him, “Make sure these tablets are really suitable.” 

“They are.” Sherlock said quickly. 

“Besides getting fatter.” Mycroft teased and Sherlock looked down at himself, wondering if his slight weight gain really was that noticeable. 

He looked up again at Mycroft and shook his head, “Only a bit.” 

“It's a good thing,” Mycroft nodded his head, “Mummy thinks your chubbier cheeks are adorable.” 

Sherlock puffed air into his cheeks and then blew a raspberry as he giggled, unable to keep it air inside. Mycroft smirked and shook his head, amused despite himself, as Sherlock jumped down from Mycroft's bed and rolled his shoulders. “Are you coming for down for dinner?” He asked as he walked slowly to the bedroom door, swinging his long legs without grace with each step. 

“In a minute or two.” Mycroft nodded his head, “go down and I'll join you.” 

“Speak to them, please?” Sherlock asked him, “Tell them to ease up on me, that I’m in big school now - tell them that this…,” he tapped his right index and middle fingers to his right temple, “...doesn’t change any of that.” 

Mycroft regarded him with something incredibly close to peer respect. Sherlock had taken the epilepsy diagnosis on his chin - so much better than he and his parents had - and he admired him for that. To Sherlock, it seemed that the news was something to be dealt with and moved on from while Mycroft was looking for a cure, or a veil (he wasn’t sure himself which), and he wished he possessed a little of Sherlock’s resilience. It scared him that soon he’d be leaving for University and wouldn’t be around to watch him like he could right now; it worried him that perhaps Sherlock’s seizures would change, evolve and strengthen, and that he would be too far away to know, or to help. 

“I’ll talk to them,” Mycroft nodded his head after too long a pause. 

Sherlock drew his mouth to the side and nodded his head. He gripped the handle of Mycroft’s bedroom door and dragged it open. And suddenly he was small again, unburdened by his health, as he half-skipped from the room like the child he actually was - like the child his blue eyes and curly hair made him look to be. 

Mycroft stood alone in the quiet of his bedroom for a moment. He considered declining dinner and continuing to read, but something in him didn’t want to be away from the ‘childlike’ Sherlock that he missed. He wanted to see as much of his little brother as he could, take as many of those photographs of beach holidays and memories of Christmas with him. He wanted to be around the dinner table as Sherlock giggled too much, spitting milk through his nose and risking aspiration as he chuckled to himself whilst everyone else chuckled at him for yet another godawful joke that made no sense and, for that exact reason, was hilariously funny. 

 

 

Violet placed the large cooking pot into the centre of the table and gave it a final stir with the ladle that was inside; the warm stew smelled amazing, and the bowl of fluffy mashed potatoes that sat beside it promised to make it a welcomed late Autumn meal. She removed her oven gloves and yodelled out to her family. “Dinner’s ready.” 

It took mere moments for the kitchen door to swing open, and Sherlock burst through with his father right behind him. Sherlock was grinning, his cheeks red right on the curve of the bone, as Siger pretended massage his shoulders forcefully, shaking the boy’s lithe frame as he made a mocking growling noise. “Get out of that, you ratbag!” he teased, “Or you’ll walk the plank!” 

Sherlock’s laughter rang a little louder and he tackled his way free of his father’s grip. “You scurvy dog!” he cried, excitedly. 

“Not in the kitchen!” Violet shook her head with a mothering tut but a bright smile. “Come on,” She tipped Sherlock around his head with her oven gloves. “Wash your hands at the sink and sit down. Did you call Mikey?” 

Sherlock nodded, breathing steadily as he calmed himself down. “I did, he’s coming.” As if he’d heard his name, Mycroft timed walking through the kitchen door perfectly. He inhaled through his nose deeply, comforted by the home cooking smell that filled the kitchen. “See,” Sherlock said, peering over his shoulder as he scrubbed his hands together under the sink. 

“Alright, Sargent Cheeky…” Violet rolled her eyes. “At the table then, everyone. Siger, love, can you grab that bottle of red from the cabinet?” Siger quickly fulfilled his wife’s request and took his place at the table with his family. 

Sherlock dried his hands roughly on the teatowel that was draped over the counter and quick-stepped to the table, flopping down into the seat beside his brother. As he sat, he frowned and screwed his eyes closed, feeling a wave of dizziness come over him. Mycroft watched him closely, not liking the way Sherlock drew his left hand up to his right shoulder and began to rub at the top of his arm, massaging his fingers into his bicep. 

“What is it?” Mycroft asked, elbowing Sherlock lightly for his attention. 

Sherlock dropped his left hand down and shook his head, “Nothing.” 

“It’s something,” Mycroft pressed, keeping his voice low. 

Sherlock shook his head again, “Just feels a bit achy.” He dismissed. “It’s fine,” he raised his voice a little bit. He reached for the plate laid out in front of him and handed it to Mycroft. “One scoop of potato; and I don’t want the stew, just the gravy from the pot.” He instructed. 

Mycroft reached to take the plate but heard it crash down onto the table before he even saw what had happened. Sherlock’s right wrist was jerking in slow movements, closing into his body as though he were reaching up to pull the strap of a backpack higher on his shoulder. The plate cracked into three jagged pieces on the table top, and Sherlock’s face echoed uncertainty as much as it did discomfort. 

“I’m sorry…” Sherlock said quickly, his voice coming out strained as the muscles along the right side of his neck and arm tightened in, changing the entire shape of his body. 

Mycroft reached out and placed his hand behind Sherlock’s back, supporting him with his hand around his furthest hip. “Don’t say sorry.” 

It took a few moments for Sherlock’s body to relax, but by the time it had everybody at the table was tense and concerned. Sherlock breathed deeply, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and the exertion it had taken to be gripped by the myoclonic jerk. 

Suddenly the joking, the teasing, the normal family stuff seemed miles away. Dinner felt like a bust, the comfort of the family seemed rocked, and Sherlock felt like a spectacle. He heaved breaths through his nose for a moment, looking for all the world like he might vomit, and pushed back his chair from the table to free himself. 

“Sherlock, stay here, son.” Siger said softly, reaching out to grasp his youngest’s arm as he went to walk away. 

Sherlock shook his head, looking his eleven and a half years of age with a sad pout and watering blue eyes. “No,” his bottom lip jutted out. “I want to watch TV in the lounge.”

Violet blinked away the tears from her eyes and nodded, “Let him go, love. Go and snuggle up with the throw blanket and watch the television. I’ll save your dinner for later.” Her voice sounded sad and strangled and Mycroft hated. 

So much for Sherlock being able to remain a child.


End file.
